3 bar menu

Volume 9 Chapter 2 Part 4

The Clamshell opens its shell. Talk about good timing. Now, who is it going to be aiming its attack at?

The Clam Shell spits water towards Roxanne. Predictably.

Roxanne tilts the upper half of her body a little to her right, and dodges the water spit attack without having even a single drop of it land on her body.

This time, even if there were many people to aim at, it has still chosen to target Roxanne, our main vanguard. This proves that the monsters seem to be able to properly determine which one of my Party Members is the main vanguard, and focus their attention on them accordingly.

Sherry in the back evades the water shot that Roxanne dodged, and thrusts her spear through the open space between Roxanne and Vesta. There’s no problem for me since I can use magic from anywhere, so there is no reason for me to move away from behind Roxanne.

However, there’s an unexpected problem to this formation that I see right now: the problem that as long as Roxanne is set as the main vanguard member who’s staying in the middle of the formation, then as long as the other two vanguard members are going to be staying too close to her, then the enemies are still going to be able to hit them with the Skills that have wider range.

We’re going to have to do something about that problem sooner rather than later.

「Are you alright?」

「I managed to dodge it somehow, so there’s no problem.」

The only thing that I could say to Sherry right now was a simple: 「Well, do your best then.」.

Two Clam Shells close in on the vanguard. The Clam Shell in the back, who spat water at us before, turns around while the girls block their advance. Sherry thrusts the spear at them, while I continue to cast spells. Another「Sand Storm」 finishes off the Clam Shells properly, managing to kill them before they could fire a second shot of their water attacks.

Vesta is able to play a vanguard role safely, too. As far as I am concerned, we seem to be able to fight properly as a team of five, don’t we?

I sweep the remaining Bitch Butterfly right afterwards. Dealing with it wasn’t a problem at all, since it was surrounded by everyone and had nowhere to run.

After defeating one group of monsters, we enter the Waiting Room in front of the Boss Room. I was able to do so without feeling any kind of anxiety, because after what I witnessed just now, all of my concerns were gone.

「This place is the Waiting Room. Just like its name implies, it is a place where you wait for other Parties to finish fighting the Floor Boss before you can move on to fight the Floor Boss itself. The Boss Room is just up ahead through that door over there.」

「Heee? Is that so? It’s my first time ever seeing one.」

Vesta was getting an explanation of how Waiting Rooms and Boss Rooms worked from Sherry. She needed that briefing because she was never inside of a Labyrinth before and didn’t have a chance to experience a proper Floor Boss before. As for Roxanne, Miria and myself, there is no need for us to have a similar briefing because we have broken through this floor once already so we know what to expect.

「Next, we are going to have you experience what a proper Boss Battle feels like. Also, you don’t have to worry yourself with allowing the Floor Boss to attack you. I will be the main fighting force this time, so I want Vesta to surround the Floor Boss along with the rest of the girls.」

「Understood.」

Now that Vesta’s lecture was finished, we can properly move on to the Boss Room and initiate the battle. If possible, then I would have liked her to experience the Boss Battle while on a lower floor, but now that we’re already here there’s no need to delay the inevitable.

And besides, with the Floor Boss of the sixteenth floor, all that Vesta has to do is to keep her distance and surround the Boss while Roxanne is distracting it so that we can all hack away at it until it drops dead.

Currently, Roxanne will take on the Floor Boss from the front while the rest will surround it from the back, however, the degree of difficulty will depend greatly on the monster that will
appear along with the Floor Boss.

Smoke gathers, and then the monsters appear: an Oyster Shell and a single Clam Shell. Since there is a possibility that both of them might try spitting water at us, I move to the opposite side of them.

While glancing at the four of them fighting the boss, I finish off the Clam Shell with Durandal, as per our usual strategy. From what I can see, Vesta seems to be doing pretty well for herself, huh? Also, this is what a Clam Shell looks like when you’re extremely close to it?

I know that I shouldn’t be taking my eyes off of the enemy in the middle of a fight, but it should be okay with this Clam Shell, because Durandal has 「HP Absorption」Skill, so even if I do get hit I can always heal myself back to full health simply by whacking it with Durandal yet again.

Roxanne dodges the boss’ attack by a hair’s breadth. She slashes it at the same time. Vesta used the opportunity that Roxanne’s evasions presented her, and also went in for a few slashes.

Just by being so large, she really stands out. And she is strong as well.

After sweeping the Clam Shell up, I go next to Sherry and join the attack on the Floor Boss.

Sherry takes a step back and thrusts her spear towards it from the back while all of us surround it and attack. No matter which Floor’s Boss it is, once it allows itself to get surrounded like this, then the battle quickly becomes one-sided.

Currently, that Oyster Shell can’t even land a single attack on us, even though it is supposed to be a Floor Boss. And it’s not going to change as long as Roxanne is around.

Vesta strikes the monster from behind with her Steel Sword. When the sword and the shell collided with one another, all that I could hear was the ear-piercing screeching sound. Such a powerful strike. Surely it must have left a big dent in the Oyster Shell’s shell, right? However, before I even got the chance to confirm if that was true or not, the Oyster Shell had already collapsed onto the ground where it turned into a puff of green smoke and died.

Did Vesta finish it off this time?

As the number of people in my Party increases, it will be harder for me to land the killing blow. Vesta’s achievement just now served as a definite proof of that. But even so, the results of the battle should still be pretty delicious in terms of EXP, even if I was not the one responsible for dealing the decisive blow to it.

「You did it, Vesta. Congratulations.」

「Yes, thank you very much, master. I am satisfied with the current level of my attack. Ever since I became a Dragon Knight, I have been noticing that some of my attacks are stronger than the rest and do more damage than I normally do. Perhaps this attack was one of them.」

I see. She’s basically talking about scoring critical hits on enemies, right? In that case, what she was talking about must have been due to the Dragon Knight Job’s 「Critical Outbreak」 Skill.

So the one who’s using it seems to be able to notice when it is taking effect, but because it is not an Active Skill they don’t know about it being the 「Critical Outbreak」 Skill and think that this is something that is just occurring naturally. And that’s not strange since there is no apparent, flashy effects of the 「Critical Outbreak」 Skill that would allow you to recognize it.

Had I not heard the loud sound from that spectacular attack, even I’m not sure if I would have noticed it.

Do only those performing and receiving the critical strike notice it? I would prefer not to notice it, then.

「It was such an overwhelming attack. Can anyone else deliver such an attack beside a Dragon Knight?」

「I haven’t heard anything about it.」

I tried to ask Vesta if other Jobs beside Dragon Knight have 「Critical Outbreak」 Skill, but she doesn’t seem to be aware of any such Job.

「Sherry? Do you happen to know anything about it?」